FOLKSTREAMS

Sharon R. Sherman

SHARON R. SHERMAN is the director of the Folklore Program at the University of Oregon and Professor of English. She holds a Ph.D. in Folklore from Indiana University and a Master's degree in Folklore and Mythology from UCLA. Most of her published work has concentrated on the relationship between film and folklore, and perceptions about folklore as revealed by filmmakers and folklorists. She teaches Introduction to Folklore, Film and Folklore, Folklore Fieldwork, Film and Video Production for Folklore Fieldwork, American folklore, Narrative Theory, American Popular Culture, the History of Folklore Theory and Research, and other courses. Her students have produced a number of films that have had local success on Oregon Public Broadcasting and elsewhere. Professor Sherman is a consultant on various arts and humanities projects, and lectures on a variety of subjects for the Oregon Council for the Humanities Chautauqua program. The topics range from Oregon folklore, to analyses of ethnicity in America, and to interpretations of documentary films from across the country. Sherman has served on the Executive Board of the American Folklore Society and was the Film and Videotape Review Editor for the Journal of American Folklore and Western Folklore. She has produced a number of films, including Kid Shoes; Tales of the Supernatural; Passover, A Celebration; Kathleen Ware, Quiltmaker; and Spirits in the Wood. In addition to numerous articles, she is the author of Chainsaw Sculptor: The Art of J. Chester Armstrong (1995), a book that grew out of her video fieldwork. Her recently released book Documenting Ourselves: Film, Video, and Culture (1998), is the first in-depth study of folklore films as a genre of documentary.